Bridging the Gap Between Real and Electronic Documents

Abstract

In the area of Personal Information Management, researchers try to cope with problems arising from the large amount of personal electronic information users have to deal with nowadays. Part of that information are the users' documents. It is difficult to retrieve documents that have been written weeks or months ago, as existing systems provide little or no clues to their whereabouts. However, it is often the case when a printed version of a document is available, and the users want to find the corresponding electronic document. That printed version should be enough to make the retrieval possible. We describe how RFID tags were used to solve that problem, by allowing an automatic association between electronic and paper versions of the same document. Our solution is part of the Quill system, a narrative-based document retrieval interface. Quill allows stories about documents to be told and used to find the documents they describe. With the use of RFID technology, it is now possible to mention information about real-world documents in those stories. Furthermore, Quill maintains a knowledge base in which information about the users and their activities is stored. The synergies between that information and the one collected with the help of RFID tags allow new use scenarios to be supported.